Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume I, Part 1: 1835-1866 eBook

He had received an offer of five hundred dollars for
his office—­the amount of the mortgage—­and
in his moonlight reverie he decided to dispose of
it on those terms. This was in 1853.

His brother Samuel was no longer with him. Several
months before, in June, Sam decided he would go out
into the world. He was in his eighteenth year
now, a good workman, faithful and industrious, but
he had grown restless in unrewarded service.
Beyond his mastery of the trade he had little to show
for six years of hard labor. Once when he had
asked Orion for a few dollars to buy a second-hand
gun, Orion, exasperated by desperate circumstances,
fell into a passion and rated him for thinking of
such extravagance. Soon afterward Sam confided
to his mother that he was going away; that he believed
Orion hated him; that there was no longer a place
for him at home. He said he would go to St. Louis,
where Pamela was. There would be work for him
in St. Louis, and he could send money home. His
intention was to go farther than St. Louis, but he
dared not tell her. His mother put together sadly
enough the few belongings of what she regarded as
her one wayward boy; then she held up a little Testament:

“I want you to take hold of the other end of
this, Sam,” she said, “and make me a promise.”

If one might have a true picture of that scene:
the shin, wiry woman of forty-nine, her figure as
straight as her deportment, gray-eyed, tender, and
resolute, facing the fair-cheeked, auburn-haired youth
of seventeen, his eyes as piercing and unwavering
as her own. Mother and son, they were of the
same metal and the same mold.

“I want you to repeat after me, Sam, these words,”
Jane Clemens said. “I do solemnly swear
that I will not throw a card or drink a drop of liquor
while I am gone.”

He repeated the oath after her, and she kissed him.

“Remember that, Sam, and write to us,”
she said.

“And so,” Orion records, “he went
wandering in search of that comfort and that advancement
and those rewards of industry which he had failed to
find where I was—­gloomy, taciturn, and selfish.
I not only missed his labor; we all missed his bounding
activity and merriment.”

XIX

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF FRANKLIN

He went to St. Louis by the night boat, visited his
sister Pamela, and found a job in the composing-room
of the Evening News. He remained on the paper
only long enough to earn money with which to see the
world. The “world” was New York City,
where the Crystal Palace Fair was then going on.
The railway had been completed by this time, but he
had not traveled on it. It had not many comforts;
several days and nights were required for the New
York trip; yet it was a wonderful and beautiful experience.
He felt that even Pet McMurry could hardly have done
anything to surpass it. He arrived in New York
with two or three dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar
bill concealed in the lining of his coat.